Ben the Inventor (4 page)
They were almost finished when the front door opened. “Run!” Jack whispered.
Ben followed Jack, dashing down the sidewalk. He thought he heard a woman yell after them, but he didn't stop. They ran to the end of their block and hid behind a tree. Then they both sank to the ground, giggling like crazy.
“Do you think they saw us?” Jack asked.
“Probably. It doesn't matter though. They don't know who we are.” Ben stopped laughing. He frowned. “We should have put the weeds down before they arrived.”
Jack laughed. “Yeah, they must think they are the fastest-growing weeds ever.”
“Stupendous Weeds!” Ben said, cracking up.
“Stupendous Weeds!” Jack grabbed him by the shoulders and pinned him down, half hugging him and half wrestling with him. After a minute, he let Ben go. He sat back on his heels and gave a long sigh. “I sure hope our plan works. 'Cause I really, really, really don't want to move.”
Ben and Jack watched from a safe distance as the bald man drove away. Then they snuck up to Jack's house and peeked through the fence. The real estate agent was still there. She was picking up all the weeds and piling them in one corner of the yard. Ben thought it was funny to see someone gardening in a suit. But, from the look on her face, she didn't find it very amusing at all.
“Let's get out of here,” he whispered. He and Jack dashed across the speed bump and into Ben's backyard.
Ben flopped down on the grass, laughing. “Whew. That was great.”
Jack rolled on top of him and pinned him down again. He liked to wrestle. “Yeah,” he said. “That was fun.” Then he stopped smiling. He sat up and looked at his watch. “The open house is in one hour. The weeds will be cleaned up by then.”
For a minute, Ben had forgotten they weren't just playing. “I know,” he said. “We need another plan. Plan C.”
It was lucky he and Jack were good at coming up with plans. Inventors were smart like that.
“Okay,” Ben said. “What kind of things would make someone not buy a house?”
“Um, if it was falling down or something like that?” Jack said.
Ben shook his head. “We can't make your house fall down. Anyway, even if we had dynamite or something, it would be a bad idea. You still have to live in it.”
“I didn't mean we should really make it fall down. I meant, we could make people think it was falling down.”
“Hmm.” Ben thought about that. “How?”
Jack stood up. “We go to the open house.”
“Can we? Are kids allowed?”
“My mom told me anyone could go,” Jack said. “She thinks all the nosy people in the neighborhood will be there.” He frowned. “She's been cleaning like mad. She even made me take down my
Star Wars
posters and hide them under my bed.”
“Wow.” Jack's bedroom walls had always been covered with
Star Wars
posters. Ben couldn't even picture it without them. It made him think about how awful it would be if Jack moved. Someone else might get his room and make it look completely different.
There was no way he could let that happen. “Okay,” he said. “We'll go to the open house.” Then he had a great idea. “In disguise!”
“Fire-bellied toads!” Jack said.
Ben and Jack dragged the costume trunk out from under his bed. It was filled with all kinds of stuff. There was a robot costume from when Ben had loved robots more than anything. There were the Viking costumes he and Jessy had made together. His old Halloween costumes were in there too. There was a skeleton costume, a devil costume and even a shark costume.
But there was nothing that seemed quite right for an open house.
Jack tried on a fake mustache. “What do you think?”
“Goofy.” Ben put on a construction hat. “How about this?”
“We're not going to look like grown-ups,” Jack said glumly. “We're too short.”
That gave Ben an ideaâa Stupendous Idea. “Jack! I know. I can sit on your shoulders. We can pretend we're one person.”
Jack's face lit up. “Cool.” He pulled a long black cloak out of the trunk. “This will hide me. All that will show is your head.”
By twelve o'clock, Ben and Jack were ready to go. Ben stood on the deck steps. Jack bent down. Ben scrambled onto his shoulders. The cloak was tied around his neck. It hung down below Jack's knees. All that showed was Ben's head at the top, and Jack's running shoes at the bottom.
Ben had drawn on a mustache with his mom's eyeliner. He had the construction hat on. It was time to put Plan C into action.
“Hurry up,” Ben said. It felt odd sitting on Jack's shoulders. Wobbly.
“You're heavy!” Jack said. He was walking carefully across the speed bump. “And I can't see where I'm going.”
“Keep going straight,” Ben said. “Now stop. Step up on the sidewalk.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jack asked.
Ben was not sure. He didn't have any better ideas though. “It will be fine,” he said. “Keep going. You're on the front path. Almost at your front door.” He could see people walking around inside. Mostly strangers, but there was the woman from two doors down, and the man who lived in the corner house. Jack's mom had been right about the neighbors coming to look.
